Project #90640 - Ensure Team Effectiveness

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What strategies can you use, or have you seen in use, that are designed to actively encourage team members to have input planning, decision making and the operations of a team?

Assessment Activity 5

Consider a team that you have either led or have been a part of. Describe the members of the team in relation to Belbin's roles.

Belbin's Roles

Your Team

Implement

Sharper

Completer / finisher

Plant

Monitor / evaluator

Specialist

Coordinator

Team worker

Resource / Investigator

Did you have the recommended mix of roles?

Was the team heavily weighted with a particular role type? What impact did this have on the team's effectiveness?

Did you have any roles missing? What impact did this have on the team's effectiveness?

What policies and procedures were used for this team to ensure that each person took responsibility for their own risks?

Assessment Activity 6

Consider the following scenario:

You are the team leader for a busy, customer focused technology support centre. Sue is a long-standing member of your team. Her position requires her to answer the telephone, handle face-to-face enquiries regarding technical difficulties, use her knowledge and experience to solve problems and finally to communicate solutions to customers.

Until recently you considered Sue to be very capable. You received good feedback from other staff and customers about her technical ability and customer service skills generally.

Recently, however, you have received a number of complaints about her from another team member and from several customers. The complaints relate to her terse and harsh interpersonal skills and her lack of responsiveness when dealing with problems. Things have become so bad that it is having a negative impact on Sue's immediate team mates. One has refused to work with her and another has complained that they are unable to complete their work as Sue is not feeding the paperwork through quickly enough

How will you handle this situation?

Assessment Activity 7

What does a team need to diagnose and resolve challenges in a effective manner?

Consider a work team of which you have been a member where issues, concerns or problems raised by a team member needed to be addressed.

Explain how the team member's issue was dealt with by others in the team and what support was offered.

Describe the processes that allowed team members to raise issues and concerns.

Comment on how effective the processes were.

What changes / additional processes could you make to further encourage team members to raise issues?

Assessment Activity 8

What advantages are there to the following groups in encouraging participation from al team members?

an organisation

the team as a whole

each individual

What do you believe are the key requirements for fostering and supporting full commitment in a team situation?

Provide an example of when a member of a team was reluctant to participate. Explain why they were reluctant and what could you, as team leader, do to encourage them. What did happen, and what was the outcome?

Assessment Activity 10

Your behaviour and actions serve as role model for other members of the team. Comment on the image that you currently project and the impact that you believe it to have on your team members.

Assessment Activity 11

Case Study

At 'Global Mining Resources' your team of geologists have been busy creating the feasibility study into a new exploration site in northern South Australia. The work has been a very large project that started 18 months ago with the team spending 6 months on location taking drilling samples and analysing them.

Of the 6 geologists and 3 administration staff that currently form the team, 2 geologists are new as is one administration person. All the others have been on the project since its inception. Up until now the team has got on well together, seemingly communicating well and resolving any differences with minimal effort. However, you have noticed lately that there has been some trouble. The difficulties in communication seem to have started since a new geologist joined the team, management gave indications that world affairs might have a serious impact on whether the project could be funded or not and you changed some allocation of team tasks.

Specifically the communication issues have been:

The monthly progress report had a section missing and, when you questioned the authors about it, it turns out that each though that the other person had done it.

Two team members have made comments to you that they think that the new geologist 'think that they know it all' and is very irritating to work with.

You have overheard comments from a couple of team members to the effect that there is no point doing a good job on the report as management have already written it off.

Comments were also made that there was no point talking to you as you always sided with management.

The new administration person is not completing their tasks on time and seems to be overwhelmed by what they have to do. You have seen them ask the other administration staff for help once or twice but despite their efforts, they are still very slow at their work and seem reluctant to ask again. When you ask them if they need help, they say that they are fine.

What factors are affecting the communication in this team?

What can you, as team leader, do to correct the situation and restore it to one of open, effective communication amongst all parties?

Assessment Activity 12

Give an example of when you had to convey good news to your team. Explain how you went about it and how successful you were.

Discuss whether it is easy or difficult to communicate good news and why.

Give and example of when you had to convey bad news to your team. Explain how you went about it and what the outcomes were. How successful were you in getting the information across without unduly upsetting everyone?

Discuss whether it is easy or difficult to communicate bad news and why.

Create your own checklist of what to do and what not to do when communicating bad news.

Assessment Activity 13

Again refer to the scenario where you are the leader for a geology team at 'Global Mining Resources'.

At 'Global Mining Resources' your team of geologists have been busy creating the feasibility study into a new exploration site in northern South Australia. The work has been a very large project that started 18 months ago with the team spending 6 months on location taking drilling samples and analysing them.

Of the 6 geologists and 3 administration staff that currently form the team, 2 geologists are new as is one administration person. All the others have been on the project since its inception. Up until now the team has got on well together, seemingly communicating well and resolving any differences with minimal effort. However, you have noticed lately that there has been some trouble. The difficulties in communication seem to have started since a new geologist joined the team, management gave indications that world affairs might have a serious impact on whether the project could be funded or not and you changed some allocation of team tasks.

Specifically the communication issues have been:

The monthly progress report had a section missing and, when you questioned the authors about it, it turns out that each though that the other person had done it.

Two team members have made comments to you that they think that the new geologist 'think that they know it all' and is very irritating to work with.

You have overheard comments from a couple of team members to the effect that there is no point doing a good job on the report as management have already written it off.

Comments were also made that there was no point talking to you as you always sided with management.

The new administration person is not completing their tasks on time and seems to be overwhelmed by what they have to do. You have seen them ask the other administration staff for help once or twice but despite their efforts, they are still very slow at their work and seem reluctant to ask again. When you ask them if they need help, they say that they are fine.

Some of your team are feeling despondent about the direction they think the company will be taking as a result of a world-wide slump in commodity prices. As a result they are not putting 100% into the report and their productivity has suffered. You have reason to believe that they might be actively seeking work elsewhere.

You have spoken to the individuals concerned and determine that they do have very real concerns that came about their own newspaper reading and interpretation of the economic climate. Their concerns were also compounded by a throw-away comment that the CEO made during last month's whole of staff meeting and a decision by executive management to delay issuing the next financial year's forecasts.

Despite your best efforts to allay your team member's fears, they will not be placated and you are very concerned that the team could disintegrate. You decide to raise the issue with the CEO.

Describe what you say and how you broach the subject in order to raise the concerns sensitively but also that results in a satisfactory outcome for all parties.

Assessment Activity 14

Unresolved means not satisfactorily solved or concluded. A work team issue can remain unresolved despite a team leader's effort to address it.

Why is it essential that unresolved issues are brought to a final conclusion?

Discuss what is meant by following up unresolved issues. What do you do to ensure that this happens?

Why is it sometimes necessary for a person external to the team to be brought in to resolve issues?

Assessment tool 2 (AT2): Written / oral questions

Leaners should answer the following questions either orally or in writing as agreed with the trainer / assessor. Written responses may be recorded in the space provided or entered in a word processing document. If more space is required attach additional pages.

If you were appointed the leader for a newly established team, describe how you would ensure that all members of the team knew that what they had to accomplish.

Why is encouraging participation in the planning, decision making and operational aspects of the team's work important for developing team cohesion and what role does feedback play in doing this?

Teams can actually work against each other if they are not managed well. How can you ensure that the teams within your organisation work together?

What are the key aspects to establishing and maintaining open communication processes with all stakeholders?

Describe what conflict involves.

Does the commitment to an outcome of a conflict influence our approach to it?